The following tutorial covers the process of installing ipw3945 drivers in Debian. Enabling you to get your Intel® PRO Wireless 3945ABG Wireless network card working in Debian. The Intel® PRO Wireless 3945ABG network cards are commonly used in various laptops ranging from HP to Dell. These drivers are in the non-free section and thus are not included with Debian or Debian remixes by default.
Installing Wireless ipw3945 drivers in Debian
- Open a terminal and type the following and then press Enter to become root:
sudo su
- Next, to open the repository sources file for editing, type:
gedit /etc/apt/sources.list
- Add the contrib and non-free sections just after main as seen below; (replacing lenny with your actual Debian release), and then save the file:
deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free
- Back at the terminal, type:
apt-get install ipw3945-modules-$(uname -r) ipw3945d firmware-ipw3945
- Now simply press Ctrl + Alt + backspace to restart x and login when prompted.
Your Intel PRO 3945 Wireless Network Card should now be enabled. You can enable your wireless connection via the NetWork Manager Applet from the Gnome Panel as is seen below: